Ruth Mack Brunswick
Ruth Jane Mack Brunswick, born Ruth Jane Mack, was an American psychiatrist. Mack was initially a student and later a close confidant of and collaborator with Sigmund Freud and was responsible for much of the fleshing out of Freudian theory. Brunswick pioneered the psychoanalytic treatment of psychoses, and the study of emotional development between young children and their mothers, and the importance of this relationship in creating mental illness.
She went to Radcliffe College in 1914 and planned on going to Harvard to receive medical education, but was denied due to her gender and graduated from Tufts Medical School instead. Her work was noticed by Freud and she began working with him to develop psychoanalysis in Vienna.
Early life and education
Ruth Jane Mack Brunswick, born Ruth Jane Mack, was born on February 17, 1897, in Chicago, Illinois, and was raised in Cincinnati. She was the only child of attorney Julian Mack, later a federal judge, and his wife Jessie Mack. Her parents were part American and had some German-Jewish roots. She was on bad terms with her strict father. There is little information about her relationship with her mother.She was educated irregularly but early became unusually well versed in literature, music, and the arts. She graduated from Radcliffe College in 1918 under the tutelage of Elmer Ernest Southard, an eminent Harvard scholar, who initiated her interest in psychology. Rejected by Harvard University because of her gender, Brunswick went to Tufts Medical School, where she finally received her M. D. cum laude in 1922.
Marriage
In 1917, she married Dr. Herman Blumgart, who later pursued a successful career as a heart specialist. His brother Leonard had gone to Vienna for a short analysis with Sigmund Freud at the end of World War I. Ruth had completed her psychiatric residency when, at the age of twenty-five, she also went to Freud. Her marriage was already troubled; her husband saw Freud in an unsuccessful effort to salvage the marriage, but Freud evidently decided the relationship was hopeless.Ruth had fallen in love with a man five years younger than herself, and got married a second time in March 1928 to Mark Brunswick, an American composer. Ruth was still in analysis with Freud in 1924 when Mark as well began to consult Freud. According to Mark, Freud later admitted that it had been a mistake for Freud and Ruth to have discussed Mark's case in detail. This marriage also resulted in divorce.